Health Apps in India

Over the last few months, I have been working on curating information on Startup’s in HealthCare.

There are many applications/app’s which are being worked on to bring HealthCare to fingertips of consumers. With my observations on around 100 Startups in HealthCare IT, I started to categorise them into three sections.

The benefits of these apps is that they show you what your lifestyle has been. Using lifestyle apps in India is completely based on self-motivation. Few organisations are motivating their workforce to use these apps and providing small benefits for reaching their goals.

The absolute connection between living a healthy lifestyle and being healthy are yet to be established. In the US, for example, employers motivate their workforce to use Fitbit or Garmin step counter devices for themselves and their family. Based on the activity employees are given discount on their Insurance payments. In India, this might take time to come, but with the speed at which things are changing, I foresee this happening in the next 2-3 years.

Why use these services?
Using these services and tracking Food in-take, steps taken each day at least provides information on how your lifestyle has been. According to the walking site, a sedentary person walks about 3,000 steps a day. In the 1960’s, in Japan, they had a 10,000 steps counter. Why 10,000? Well, at least we know it is an activity which takes effort and walking definitely helps you be more healthier. Probably, this 10,000 steps came from the 10,000 Hour Rule.

Why use these services?
Predominantly, these services are for elders at home and others who are busy and cannot afford to go to a Diagnostic lab just to give the sample and collect reports. Also, instead of going to a Hospital/Clinic, today you can book an appointment with the Doctor and go at your specific time-slot which saves you time too.

Service Apps – e-Commerce, Booking appointments etc.
Practo, Zipnosis, Surgical are few of the best examples of Service oriented Apps. You can book doctor appointments, consult with other Doctors etc.

Why use these services?
There is a surge in requests for Doctor Appointments, collecting samples from home, second Doctor reference etc. Apps/Services in this category are beginning to streamline Health service requests. Even though these services are currently being used in select cities, they are fast penetrating into the complete country. Over a period of time, we see that if not all, most of the Doctor community will be online and services will start to get better. Since we do not have a central medical system (like the NHS in UK), these apps can bring about the change in reaching out to Doctors and how we start looking at improving care.

PS: I might change the categorisations if required and would go deeper into each categorisation over the next few weeks. If you are interested in getting a complete report on Companies working on various Health related applications, subscribe to my HealthCare Technology Report.